


A gilded girl and the power pillager

by 372259



Category: Percy Jackson & The Olympians (Movies), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-01 22:23:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13304574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/372259/pseuds/372259
Summary: Luke is possessive, obsessive, and powerful. The gods are at his mercy and Olympus is within his grasp. But, he's not done yet. After all, every king needs a queen… and this time, she will never leave his side again.// Dark and twisted Thaluke. Thalia and Luke mainly, Percabeth too. Annabeth/Thalia friendship, as well as Percy/Anna/Grover friendship. Warning: altered cannon.





	1. a bronze box

**Author's Note:**

> There is a better formatted version of this on ffn.net with the same title. I would recommend viewing on that site (at least until I can figure out how to properly format stories on AO3)

Summary: Luke is possessive, obsessive, and powerful. The gods are at his mercy and Olympus is within his grasp. But, he's not done yet. After all, every king needs a queen… and this time, she will never leave his side again. Dark Luke. Thaluke. Thalia and Luke. Some Percabeth and Annabeth+Thalia friendship.

For the purpose of this story: The prophecy mentioned 21, not 16, as the age of the child. Luke is 20 years old and Thalia is chronologically 19 years old. However, Thalia looks like she is 18 years old due to the whole pine tree slowing down, but not stopping, her aging. Percy and Annabeth are 16 years old.

Other timeline notes: Luke met Thalia when he was 10 years old (thus Jason 'died' when Thalia was 9 years old). The duo met Annabeth when Luke was 13 years old. Grover found Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth and led them towards camp half-blood when Luke was 15 years old. Events of the first book happened when Luke was 19 years old and Percy was 15 years old. Thalia was thus a tree for four and a half/five years.

Disclaimer: Anything from the Percy Jackson and the Olympian books belongs to Rick Riordan. Plot twists, new dialogue, and [spoiler alert] new prophecy are mine. If I did own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, well Thaluke would be alive and kicking butt ;) Image (of the Devil tarot card) is courtest of / tarot_cards/ the_devil .php

On with the first chapter/prologue!  
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**Chapter 1: A bronze box  
** \---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_He isn't breathing._

Actually, he isn't even whole. His body was ripped into gory pieces, uneven chunks of his corpse are splattered across the floor. Fresh slices of organs and tissue decorate every surface, even the ceiling. Warm blood is speckled across her face and smeared across the wooden walls of the room in deep red streaks.

_He's dead._

She takes her time, gathers the parts she can. She forcibly pushes down the nausea and bile crawling up her throat. She is meticulous in her clean-up, despite her nostrils burning with the smell of iron.

_It isn't fair, he was so young…_

She gently puts all the pieces of him that she could salvage into a little bronze box. The shovel cuts into her hand as she digs up the dirt, but she doesn't feel the laceration. She hasn't felt anything since realizing that he was dead. _Besides,_ she thinks, _my hands are already covered in his blood, adding more will hardly matter._

No one sees the sobbing girl soaked in blood when she buries a box with shaking hands.

No one sees the angry girl stand vigil, unmoving from her spot, even when the storm comes and rain attempts to wipe the dried blood from her. (Of course it doesn't work, the rain just pushes the stain deeper into her skin).

No one hears the vow of vengeance she makes over the unmarked grave, her hatred masked by cold determination.

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**End of Chapter 1  
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So this was really more of a prologue, the subsequent chapters will be much longer. Who do you suspect the girl and boy in this chapter are? Share your thoughts in a review ;) Since it is new years and all, I will be posting a four chapter blitz over the next 24 hours :D

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Preview for Chapter 2: a gilded girl

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It was right there where, five months ago, she was poisoned.

'Luke poisoned you. He left you for dead.'...

Annabeth's happy voice breaks Thalia from her trance. The empty girl tells herself to smile back; she does not want to worry her best friend. The smile is plastic and doesn't reach Thalia's eyes, but Annabeth knows better than to comment on it...

'Little Luke and little Thalia, two runaways who found each other when they had no one else.' ...

The angry embers start to lick up her legs, crawling and slithering their way up to her thighs. The heat turns unbearable. She tries screaming but her mouth refuses to open...

Thalia, we're worried about you...

Forever together, just like we promised each other...

"I never forgave myself for letting you go through with it. And now I'm never letting you go again." His whispered words thread through the air between them, taking their sweet time to strangle her...

"If he continues to haunt you, the wisest choice is to join us. Our goddess, among many things, is willing to grant her charges… apathy towards certain individuals. She can force your heart to forget him."


	2. a gilded girl

Summary: Luke is possessive, obsessive, and powerful. The gods are at his mercy and Olympus is within his grasp. But, he's not done yet. After all, every king needs a queen… and this time, she will never leave his side again. Dark Luke. Thaluke. Thalia and Luke. Some Percabeth as well as Annabeth and Thalia friendship.

For the purpose of this story: The prophecy mentioned 21, not 16, as the age of the child. Luke is 20 years old and Thalia is chronologically 19 years old. However, Thalia looks like she is 18 years old due to the whole pine tree slowing down, but not stopping, her aging. Percy and Annabeth are 16 years old. Also, Luke has green eyes in this fic. Why? I do not know why, but I just always pictured him with green eyes *shrugs*

Other timeline notes: Luke met Thalia when he was 10 years old (thus Jason 'died' when Thalia was 9 years old). The duo met Annabeth when Luke was 13 years old. Grover found Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth and led them towards camp half-blood when Luke was 15 years old. Events of the first book happened when Luke was 19 years old and Percy was 15 years old. Thalia was thus a tree for five-ish years.

Disclaimer: Anything from the Percy Jackson and the Olympian books belongs to Rick Riordan. Plot twists, new dialogue, and [spoiler alert] new prophecy are mine. If I did own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, well Thaluke would be alive and kicking butt ;)

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Chapter 2: A gilded girl  
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A pair of electric blue eyes burst open, greeting darkness. There are a few rapid blinks before the owner registers a weak red glow buzzing at the edge of her vision. A resigned glance towards the carmine digits of a silent alarm reveals that it is (as expected) still much too early to be awake, let alone to leave the warm embrace of her bed.

She does the math with a weary mind, and suspects that she maybe managed three hours worth of sleep.

Thalia makes a poor attempt at airing out the damp sheets. She huffs, switches her position, and closes her eyes. She repeats this six more times over sixty more minutes, before she groans and concludes that she is victim to another night of barely any sleep followed by restless twitching. Irritated and very sleep-deprived, she yanks the covers off of her supine form and quietly creeps out of her timber cage. The silence outside is pleasant until it is ruined by an unwelcome, but increasingly familiar, voice.

'How quaint. You've moved from one wooden prison to another,' it taunts. The bitter words meander through the labyrinth of her mind and take heavy steps along twisted turns. They echo sharply, like only cold thoughts can.

When she first (finally) entered the camp as a human, she was taken to her cabin. The others told her repeatedly that she would be safe in it, in this rotting cage. (And it is rotting. Don't they understand? Trees that fall only ever rot.) This alleged safety comes at a hefty cost: Zeus's cabin is confining and foreign. She feels like a cross between a prisoner and a tourist in this cabin. She is no more than a stranger in this place which is disheartening on so many levels because hadn't she given up everything for a place to feel safe? Yet, no matter how many days pass, this camp does not feel like home. Thalia worries that it never will. She cannot figure out why.

Retreating from her disturbing thoughts, the ink-haired girl finds that her feet have led her to the periphery of the camp. She scans her surroundings slowly, her eyes roaming, but her feet mounted firmly to the spot where she had lost five years of her life.

In her perusal, she notices Peleus close his golden eyes to rest for the moment. It's as if the copper-scaled beast understands that the tree's true protector is here. Her eyes follow the curve of the guardian's tail and rest on the fine stitching of the Golden Fleece laid upon the tree's broad roots.

'Draped like a pall,' the voice mocks.

She forces herself to take a step forward and she strokes her left hand rest against the coarse skin of the tree. A muscle in her cheek almost twitches, the beginnings of a smile threatening to pull at her lips. Her forehead meets the stubbly bark as she greets it like one would an old friend. Unlike the camp, this spot (with its crisp air and clear view) feels familiar.

Her subsequent sigh is half disappointment and half frustration.

She doesn't remember. She doesn't remember any of it.

The past five years have been stolen from her, replaced with a deep blackness that rears its disturbing head every single night in the form of tormenting nightmares. Fortunately, she doesn't remember the details of the nightmares either. Unfortunately, her sweat-drenched skin, racing pulse, and skewed waking position are enough souvenirs to convey that the nightmares are as unpleasant as they are unrelenting.

Her hand stops its examination of the pillar, stilling over a spot in the centre of the coarse bark.

It was right here where five months ago she was poisoned.

'Luke poisoned you. He left you for dead.'

For a moment, Thalia is glad she can't remember.

'Luke poisoned you. He left you for dead. Luke poisoned you. He left you for dead. Luke poisoned you. He left you for dead. Luke poisoned you. He left you for dead.'

Sharp slivers puncture the calloused flesh of her palm… she hadn't realized how hard she had been pressing her hands against the pine tree's jagged skin. She glances at the wounds; the cuts are deeper than she expected.

'Hate him, hate him, hate him, hate him,' is the mantra that lulls her eyes closed.  
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'Dark. It's only ever dark in here.'  
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The daughter of Zeus awakes to a bright, blinding light. She blinks thickly, trying to shake off her sleep-induced haze.

A male silhouette appears above her. For the briefest of seconds her heart plays a cruel trick and tells her its face has green eyes and blond hair.

"Thalia! Did you spend the entire night out here?"

She thinks the answer is pretty damn obvious, so she doesn't grant Percy's pointless question with a verbal response. Her middle finger moves of its own accord though, because his accusation was especially loud and grating on her still sensitive ears.

The boy frowns in obvious concern. Sighing, he ignores the (unsurprising) greeting and offers his hand to help her up. She takes it, and is proud of herself for not hesitating to do so. They start to trudge across the dirt path their way back to the cabins, and silence accompanies the duo until they reach the pillared entrance of Zeus's cabin. Thalia's still sore hand is already pushing the door open when Percy decides to speak to her back,

"I think you should go and speak with Chiron." He lets his sentence all out in one rushed breath, as if he has been wanting to say it for a while, and has only just found the courage to do so.

"And I think you should mind your own business." Thalia can feel the acid lacing the words spewing from her lips. And even though she had been facing away from him, she can tell without glancing back that the words have burned Percy. She turns her torso slightly for the confirmation; Percy looks hurt at her harsh reply. A part of the teen wants to apologize for her hostility since she really shouldn't be taking out her frustrations on the person who was instrumental in bringing her back to life (for saving her from a lifetime of the dark). Especially since lashing out at the well-meaning kid only ever succeeded in making her feel as if she had just kicked a wounded puppy. Or kitten. Or bunny. Or other furry, wide-eyed, innocent woodland creature.

She cuts off her errant thoughts to focus. She wants to say sorry, but the apology stays glued on her tongue. Perhaps the acid has melted the syllables, leaving them unable (and just a little unwilling) to slip between her teeth.

Ultimately, she decides to turn her back, cross the threshold, and shut the door.

They have lessons, and she needs to get dressed for them. She eyes the gear in the corner with a dull expression.  
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Five, six, seven, eight, nine...

Opponent after opponent falls.

The girl defeating them all has yet to even break a sweat. Her voice is empty when her sparring sword sweeps the area and cooly asks for any more challengers.

She wonders when, exactly, she gained such a disinterest in fighting. She doesn't enjoy it… she doesn't get the same thrill she used to. There is no fun, no chance for improvement, just a tedious chore she completes to deafen herself to the problems barricaded in the many rooms of her mind. It is not entirely successful (she still hears the green-eyed shadow banging against the door she has locked it behind, and hears a familiar voice that slurs from excess wine and reeks of alcohol).

Tendons tense beneath her arm guards, and the grip on her sword tightens. Everything feels strange still: this body, her longer limbs, her strength, the movements, even her height. She feels as though she is not actually controlling her movements. She just follows the motions; she doesn't make any of her own.

She feels hollow.

Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…

There used to be someone who was a challenge. She would compete with him in everything and anything. They would spend hours practicing with each other, laughing over trip-ups and patching up unintentionally inflicted wounds. Jokingly prod each other with sharp quips and guide each other away from their doubts. Thalia realizes the memories are leaking from behind her mental door. She responds by stuffing them back violently, slamming the door harshly, and wrapping chains of steel across it.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…

"Great job Thalia!"

Annabeth's happy voice breaks Thalia from her trance. The empty girl tells herself to smile back; she does not want to worry her best friend.  
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The smile is plastic and doesn't reach Thalia's eyes, but Annabeth knows better than to comment on it.

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Left, right, in front of her, behind her, above her… everything is stark white. There are no walls, no ground, no ceiling, just white. She stands amidst an all-consuming setting of blankness. This dream is incredibly weird, but she's just happy it's a dream. That means her body is finally getting some rest. More so, this place has chased away the dark, so she will not question this mercy.

Curious enough to explore, she takes a step forward.

Correction: she tries to take a step forward.

The first thing she notices is that her legs feel incredibly heavy. The simple task of lifting her foot and pushing it in front of the other has her out of breath, dizzy, and mentally reeling from the effort.

The second thing she notices is that there is a strange patch of fresh, verdant grass that appears underneath her leading foot. She is able to force herself to push for another step, and then another. The grass disappears when a foot rises, only to reappear when the foot comes back down.

The third thing she notices is that she is no longer alone. About seven paces in front of her, stands a stoic Luke Castellan.

Chronologically speaking, she hasn't seen him in years. He still strongly resembles the young boy she remembers. Well, minus the slightly lanky form. Instead his shoulders are broader and he is much taller too, annoyingly so. This is the young boy, only not so young anymore, the one who she spent all those years protecting and being protected by.

'The one who poisoned you… the one who left you for dead.' The voice reminds her cruelly.

Her inspection ends with his eyes, and their gazes are locked. He doesn't say anything. Neither does she.

Seeming to have enough of the apparent stalemate, Luke makes the first move. He casually stalks up a few paces, advancing towards her with ease. Clearly, her dream has decided not to bestow upon him the inconvenient mobility handicap it has (not so) kindly donned upon her.

Thalia responds to his smooth approach by standing tall and keeping herself absolutely still. She may be unable to escape the impending collision, but she refuses to cower to this traitor.

'Traitor. Liar. Traitor. Liar. Traitor.'

He stops right before impact, and stands right in front of her. There are mere inches between them. She reluctantly concedes her stance of absolute stillness, having to tilt her head up in order to keep track of his eyes. Her observations continue: there are no puffed-out cheeks, no goofy grin, no warm eyes. In their place is a more defined, stubble-laden jaw, supporting an expression she can tell has been designed to deceive.

Her thoughts keep racing but her face remains impassive.

He has the gall to smirk.

She glares in response. Passivity be damned, she was furious with him. And then her fury doubles because she can tell that he is happy that he was able to get a rise from her (such was a favoured hobby of his in the past).

'Little Luke and little Thalia, two runaways who found each other when they had no one else.'

Luke's touch takes her away from the voice. His larger hands have settled on her shoulders. If she could, she would cringe away from his grip. It is large enough to sprawl, and his thumbs start to softly trace either side of her exposed collarbone.

She is about to vocally object to his overtly dominating caresses, when she is suddenly thrust against his chest. His strong arms encircle her smaller frame, his face buries itself in the crook of her neck, and for a moment, she mistakes him for the boy she met when she was twelve.

But the moment dies quickly.

The cords of muscle lining his arms tighten, his protective hold turns possessive, and his arms keep her from running away when the grass beneath her feet sets aflame.

The angry embers start to lick up her legs, crawling and slithering their way up to her thighs. The heat turns unbearable. She tries screaming but her mouth refuses to open. She can do nothing as she feels the angry blaze eat her skin. She smells charred flesh and it brings on a bout of nausea, as pain she has never known starts tearing at her from every nerve ending.

She wakes up skewed across her mattress, with a racing pulse, clammy skin, and a mind repeating run run run run run. Frantic, Thalia immediately pushes herself up, runs to the camp showers, and scrubs her skin until the pale flesh is burning red.

She doesn't know what she is trying to wipe off: the flames or Luke. Either way, she hasn't much success.  
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"Thalia, we're worried about you. You haven't been sleeping." Annabeth's voice is soft and clearly concerned, but reprimanding nonetheless.

Zeus's daughter meets the worried gazes of her friends. She (smartly) holds back the snarky comment always ready to leap from her barbed tongue. She reminds herself again that Percy, Annabeth and Grover (who have been nothing but kind to her) don't deserve to feel the brunt of her frustration.

"I'm fine. Pass me the ketchup please."

Predictably, nobody does.

Grover even raises his brows at her very unsubtle attempt to avoid the conversation.

Percy takes a deep breath before starting whatever intervention they've manufactured this time. "Last week was the third time I found you passed out at the Pine Tree. Whenever I pass by Zeus's cabin, whether it's after a late night or before I start an early morning, you're always awake. I know it has only been a few months since you… well since we came back with the Fleece. You're still fighting formidably, heck you're easily the best here, which you know, is pretty great since it pisses off Clarisse. But, all you ever do is practice despite the fact that you're so exhausted even Chiron has asked us what's up with you."

"Speaking of sparring, I promised a scrap before class with that overzealous girl from Ares's cabin. Gotta' go."

Annabeth starts to get up, most likely with the intention of following her best friend out of the camp's dining pavilion. Percy's hand on her arm stops the blonde. In fact, he's so fixated on stopping a persistent Annabeth, Percy doesn't notice his hircine protector quietly slide off the bench and follow the daughter of lightning.

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Just when Thalia is about to release a breath of relief at escaping (or at least postponing) another 'well-meaning' intervention attempt, she finds her path being cut off by a nervous satyr.

Her exit is blocked, so she has no choice but to wait for Grover to say his piece.

"I… I just wanted… I am... I am so sorry."

Well, that certainly wasn't what she expected to hear.

"… It was my job to get you all here safely. I… I couldn't. And I… I am so sorry it took me so long to gather the nerve to apologize to you for it."

Grover stumbles through the apology, oozing sincerity but barely meeting her eyes. At the end of his spiel he immediately looks down further to the floor and his shoulder hunch inwards. She supposes he expects some sort of reprimand or blame.

"It was my choice Grover. I don't regret it. I would do it again." Thalia says it with resolution strengthening her words (and hopefully her message). She means it. "We all… Annabeth and you were safe. I got here eventually. That's all that matters."

She refuses to think about the fourth member of the party that had accompanied her here.

She absolutely refuses.

He may haunt her nights, but she refuses to give him hold of her days as well.

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Annabeth was (as per always) completely right; Thalia hadn't been sleeping. In fact, Thalia is now trying her very best to avoid sleeping.

Black nightmares have been replaced with eerily realistic confrontations with Luke in that strange white space. Thankfully, no other encounters have ended with her being burned alive. Then again, that may be because the verdant fibres that had previously followed her were now charred.

There is nothing left to burn.

There is smoke though, tendrils of it which quietly dance up from the ashes as a ghostly reminder of what had happened.

She chooses to ignore whatever her subconscious is trying to convey with these… nighttime happenstances. She also chooses to ignore the fact that the line between the dream world and her reality is starting to blur more and more each time she visits him.

"You really don't blame him?"

The fact that he somehow knows everything that is going on with her reality only serves to freak her out further. Then again, it shouldn't, really, because he is just a conjecture from her weary mind, right? Right. So it makes sense that he knows what she does, and that he sees what she sees.

Accompanying his frigid tone is a harsh glare. He is stiffly leaning against something that is not there (or at least that she cannot see), just a meter or so ahead of her. His entire body is tensed, as if he is preparing to strike. He is so lifelike, so realistic (from the movement of his chest as he breathes, to the callouses of the his fingers when they scrape across her cheek), that she has to constantly remind herself that he is not real. That he can't hurt her, because he is not real.

"It was my choice… no one forced me… to do anything." Her response comes out breathy and weak. Another item to add under the list of reasons why she hates sleeping. Every time she enters this place she is rendered utterly weak and stagnant. She is like a wimpy shadow of her day self. She hates feeling weak, especially in front of him.

She can feel his fury pulsating off him in waves when he responds. "How can you say that!? The idiotic satyr not remembering a simple route to the camp was the reason that we ended up being chased by those monsters. It's the reason you died!"

He ends up barely a breath away from her, his hands clutching her arms too tightly to ever be comfortable.

"His job was to protect you. We were supposed to arrive at Camp Half-Blood together. We were supposed to stay together."

His vice-like hold on her seems to serve as a confirmation for him. It affirms that she is here with him. As a result, his body calms down and his voice lowers to barely above a whisper. "Forever together, just like we promised each other."

"Forever together… is that the motto you used to justify poisoning me and leaving me for dead?" Her words are hissed through a clenched jaw. She wants to stay detached, to erect some sort of distance between them, but her anger can't be covered. She is finally asking him what has been eating away at her ever since Annabeth told her about the circumstances leading to her revival.

He doesn't even blink when he responds.

"It was for your own good. I needed them to get the Golden Fleece—"

"To revive Chronos—"

"And then to heal you. I was going to bring you back next, after Chronos laid waste to the gods, so that we could bury the corpses of the Olympians together. Just like we always wanted."

"That is not what I wanted."

A crooked smirk mars his (admittedly handsome) features. While his left hand remains on her arm, he brings his right hand up to stroke her cheek. She decides that he has become much too comfortable putting his hands on her. She tries to struggle as much as she can, but her best efforts don't faze Luke. Her struggles merely manifest as subdued trembling and Luke easily keeps control of her.

"Get your hands off of me now, Luke."

Her voice, which she tries to make come out as strong, certain, and vindictive, instead leaves her lips as little more than a whimper. She is reminded of how much she hates this place and vows never to close her eyes again.

Predictably, he doesn't listen to her. Instead the hand that was on her arm is suddenly at the small of her back, pressing her form closer to him. His other hand lowers to her jaw, then pulls up and forces her eyes unto his. She is seething. The stupid bastard knows this is making me uncomfortable, that's why he's doing it.

He brings his mouth to her ear, when he finally decides to respond.

"Delude yourself however you want Thals. But, you can't lie forever. You know," (his hand starts the trek down from her jaw) "…deep down," (his palm presses against her pounding heart and the traitorous organ stumbles) "…that I'm right." (his lips hovers above hers) "You want to stand by my side."

Get him off now, Thalia! She has barely processed the blaring warning from her subconscious, when her response slips from her mouth. "No."

He glares at her; his rage at her refusal is tangible.

Immediately, she feels her back being pressed against some invisible wall and his lips forcefully making their way from her jaw down her neck.

She wants to scream at him because she knows. She knows his actions for what they truly are; they aren't a show of affection but a display of power. Luke had always been a control freak, and it seems that in her absence that it has grown and festered into something sick, something dark. He just wants her to know that in here, he is free to do whatever he wants to her - that she is nothing more than a puppet for him to use as he pleases.

His mouth reaches her collarbone, her initial shock and disgust wear off, and she starts to struggle against him once more. He does not get to demean her like this without some sort of fight on her part. So she battles against him, harder than before. To her annoyance, her attempts to push and shove come out as nothing more than soft turns in this world. He is so close to her, his body flush against hers, that she feels his chuckle when it vibrates through his chest.

"Ignorance doesn't suit you Thalia."

She ignores the way his breath fans across her recently assaulted neck. She doesn't need the mental haze the breath on the sensitive flesh brings. She needs to stay as lucid as possible. His voice interrupts her construction of her mental fortress.

"You want it."

She isn't entirely sure if he's referring to their previous conversation or his actions. Probably both. Regardless, her answer is the same.

"…No, I… I don't." The hesitance in her response scares her. She blames the hesitance on this strange place. Her resolve would never waver on this…

He (finally) brings his head up to face her. Eye to eye, he seems to think he can convince her. "You trust me."

"I did."

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"I did."

The honesty in her response guts him.

For the first time in their encounters, Luke is privy to a reaction from her that isn't impassivity or anger. He sees her pain and hurt, and he feels the need to defend himself. Once he explains it to her, she will understand and then she will happily stand by him forever.

"I did it for you Thalia. I wasn't able to get the Fleece on my own. You were always in my plans, always in the back of my mind, but them?" Luke sneers, "do you think they would have tried to heal you if I hadn't poisoned you?"

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Her eyes tear themselves away from him. She can't say he is wrong… but she can't bring herself to admit that he is right either.

Luke's voice is barely above a whisper as he continues. It is raw with emotion, "You may not remember, but I went to that stupid pine tree every, single, night, for years after they killed you. I went there, drunk with grief, fell to my knees and begged. I begged and pleaded and prayed and cried to my father, to your father, to all of those selfish giants to bring you back to me. Those callous, uncaring cowards would stay silent. Then, I'd scream at you, while choking on my tears. I'd ask you again and again why you'd left me."

He pauses to take a breath and she makes the mistake of looking back into his eyes. Her heart stutters. Thalia can't speak. A part of her wants to call his words a lie… but she knows they are true.

"You said you'd catch up to us and I trusted you. I believed you. And I have regretted that decision every single minute for the past five years of my life."

Luke moves his arms away from the girl who is rendered mute. He takes a few steps back.

"I never forgave myself for letting you go through with it. And now I'm never letting you go again." His whispered words thread through the air between them, taking their sweet time to strangle her.  
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"I told you he would let you down."

Thalia doesn't respond. She blames her time as a tree for her deference to introversion as a defence for conversations she doesn't want to have.

Zoë continues. "You still have a chance to leave, Thalia Grace." The huntress ignores the way Thalia flinches at the use of her last name. "The Hunters can tell something is coming, it would be wise for you to join us. After his betrayal, there is nothing keeping you back here now."

That, Thalia has to disagree with. "My sister is here. My friends are here." Annabeth, Percy, Grover, even Clarisse and Percy's brother, and all the others quickly flash in her mind. "I need to stay here and protect them, if something bad really is coming."

Zoë (as per usual) seems to barely be containing her fury when she replies. "Ignorant child, can you not see that joining us is the only way to protect them."

"I still have three years still to find a way around the prophecy. I will."

The lieutenant shakes her head in disbelief. "We leave tomorrow morning, Thalia. You have until then to make your decision. I really do hope you make the right one this time... I worry you may not be eligible for an offer the next time we meet, and then you really will have no options to save you from the prophecy."

Thalia is just about to open the door and leave the room (as well as the huntress's ominous warnings) behind, when Zoë's voice stops her.

"If he continues to haunt you, the wisest choice is to join us. Our goddess, among many things, is willing to grant her charges… apathy towards certain individuals. She can force your heart to forget him."

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Zoë's "offer" replays itself again and again and again in Thalia's mind. The offer is so tempting, and grows more appealing each time it reverberates in her head.

She doesn't want to leave Annabeth, not again. And despite the fact that she has yet to acknowledge this place as her home, she can honestly say that she thinks she has begun to care about Percy and Grover and all of the other campers she has met here. She feels obligated to protect this camp and its campers.

But she isn't stupid.

It is getting harder and harder to leave Luke. She, more often than not, has found herself getting lost in his promises and apologies. She has been trying to find a way to justify it. She hasn't been successful yet. But it hasn't escaped her notice, that despite her weakened state in her dreams, she feels so much less like a stranger when she is with him. His familiarity lures her in a way that nothing in this plane of existence does.

Annabeth is her sister in all but blood… but Luke was once her other half.

In a place where she feels like she is drowning in change, her feelings for him are the only constant… feelings of hate that is. Nothing more. Nothing at all…

She makes her decision.

All she has to do is stay awake until tomorrow morning, and then he won't be able to talk her out of it.

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"You'd really rather forget?!"

His voice is raw with fury, voice cracking with unbridled anger, and his eyes burn with passionate rage.

'No, no, no! I don't even remember falling asleep! I know I didn't! This can't be happening! I can't be here!'

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

She has the nerve to look away from him, to hide and cower away from his heated gaze.

But Luke is not putting up with her crap. Not anymore. Not since she was going to try and forget him – erase him – completely dismiss everything they ever had and everything they could have.

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He violently yanks her towards him, and her neck screams from the whiplash.

"I can't believe that you would give up our time together… all of our memories together… for a god! Did you forget? She is just like our fathers; you are disposable to her, but you are everything to me." He hisses, "How could you even consider choosing them over me?!"

She is capable of speaking, and she is glad for it, because this is something the possessive jerk needs to hear. He is so patronizing, and her hand itches to punch him. She wants to hurt him the way he had hurt her when she woke up and they told her that he wasn't there. "Oh, would you quit this stupid act Luke! I can see right through the little game you're trying to play with me. I am not naïve, I am not going to fall for it, and I am definitely not some freaking object you get to keep!"

The little space between them is filled with nothing but angry breaths and raging glares.

She breaks the silence, disappointment sharpening her bitter words. "What happened to you?"

The tension in Luke's form seems to assuage a bit as he responds quietly. "You left. I guess you could say, that you took a part of my heart with you." The words sound pretty, but Luke's eyes are empty when he responds. She hates the way her heart softens to his words. He has always been so good at manipulating her, probably because she always lets him.

She remembers the poison and glares, "clearly, there was never anything there to take."

She feels his body tense once more at her callous words. He snarls. "We wanted a world without gods, that's what I've spent years working towards—"

Thalia cuts him off, before he can poison her mind further. "What I wanted was a world without monsters, not for you to become one. Let me go. I'm joining the hunt and then I'm going to forget your backstabbing, traitorous, lying face ever existed."

Her spiel is punctuated with an atmosphere change. Suddenly, it is… dangerous. For the first time in their encounters, she feels the feet of fear digging their talons into her throat crawling up with unerring accuracy.

She is terrified.

It's just a dream. It's not real. It's just a dream. He can't hurt you, he isn't really here.

Her mantra stands no chance against his fury.

His eyes change. They morph into something crueler… this is not the Luke from her past. This is not the boy with a goofy grin wedged between slightly cherubic cheeks. This is not her best friend. This is not the boy would never hurt her.

"I know something interesting about Artemis's little club." His voice is misleadingly flippant. "Apparently, she only accepts girls who… fit a certain criterion. "

The threat registers, but before she can voice her indignation and doubt that he will go through with it, his mouth is on hers, aggressively stealing a kiss. His lips are harsh and violent. His kiss is punishment for even thinking of leaving him. Her struggles are clearly irrelevant to this despicable person her old Luke has become. She is running out of air, her throat is burning from asphyxiation, and she half expects that this kiss will kill her. Just when the dizziness brought on by lack of oxygen begins to blur her vision, he rips his mouth off of hers and brings it to her ear.

His voice is ragged and his whispers are harsh, and she just barely hears him over her desperate, gasping attempts to fill her lungs. "If I were to do something to you, something terrible, would he save you? Would he even care enough to try?"

The heat of his breath flitting across the sensitive skin by her ear is disorienting, but it doesn't take her too long to discern that he is referring to her father. "Whatever else you may blame him for, whatever else you may think, Luke, my father is the only reason I am alive—"

"He is the reason you died in the first place! They did nothing when beasts came after you and hurt you. They sat on their thrones and they watched. They all let you die. They took you away from me. They continue to do nothing to help any of us. And now, they're going to pay for it all. Help me get back at them for what they did you. For what they let happen to all of us."

"…No." She whispers, and her heart drops, because the lack of resolve in her answer scares her.

And of course he hears the conviction missing from her refusal, because he has always been able to decipher everything about her. A fiendish smile appears on his face (and for a moment she wants to smile back because that is the same smile he used once upon a time to preface his sarcastic quips). "Stubborn as always huh? Don't worry. I have all the time in the world to change your mind. To make you admit what you really want. I wanted to convince you to come to me on your own, but I think I'm okay with just taking you instead."

She doesn't have the chance to call him a raving lunatic and ask him what he means, she just feels a piercing pain in her abdomen.

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End of Chapter 2

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Please review! Let me know what you like, what you don't like. Let me know if you see any spelling mistakes, grammar errors, etc. too and I would be happy to fix them!

Preview for Chapter 3: sky in silver

The thick quilt is covering everything below her chin now. She briefly wonders if he'll be merciful and just strangle her with it.

…

Please help me!

…

Luke, don't kill him. Please.

...

She's gorgeous when she screams

...

It has been almost three weeks since their departure. Neither have returned.


	3. sky in silver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the version with correct formatting (bolding, italicized text) is on ffn. I will one day make the effort to fix it up on ao3, but that probably isn't anytime soon.

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Summary: Luke is possessive, obsessive, and powerful. The gods are at his mercy and Olympus is within his grasp. But, he's not done yet. After all, every king needs a queen… and this time, she will never leave his side again. Dark Luke. Thaluke. Thalia and Luke. Some Percabeth and Annabeth+Thalia friendship.

For the purpose of this story: The prophecy mentioned 21, not 16, as the age of the child. Luke is 20 years old and Thalia is chronologically 19 years old. However, Thalia looks like she is 18 years old due to the whole pine tree slowing down, but not stopping, her aging. Percy and Annabeth are 16 years old.

Other timeline notes: Luke met Thalia when he was 10 years old (thus Jason 'died' when Thalia was 9 years old). The duo met Annabeth when Luke was 13 years old. Grover found Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth and led them towards camp half-blood when Luke was 15 years old. Events of the first book happened when Luke was 19 years old and Percy was 15 years old. Thalia was thus a tree for four and a half/five years.

Disclaimer: Anything from the Percy Jackson and the Olympian books belongs to Rick Riordan. Plot twists, new dialogue, and [spoiler alert] new prophecy are mine. If I did own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, well Thaluke would be alive and kicking butt ;)

On with the third chapter!

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Chapter 3: sky in silver

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It takes entirely too much effort to pry open her eyes when she wakes up. Her eyelashes are tangled with each other, and she has to try to blink away the crusts at the edges of her eyes. Her vision is blurry and stuck in a sleepy haze. She makes out a shape above her, and as the resolution improves her lungs seize when she sees green eyes and blonde hair. She tries to blink it away, expecting blue and dark brown to take their place. Because maybe she slept by the tree again, and maybe Percy is coming to collect her again, and she will happily take his rebuke and the golden trio's attempts at intervention because the alternative is so much worse.

The blinking doesn't work, the emerald orbs only become clearer.

She feels his fingers tracing her cheeks and jawline. They slowly make their way into her hair, tangling his fingers between the dark locks.

And then it hits her, she isn't dreaming.

She shoots out of bed, but the energy to do so completely offsets her, and she ends up falling into his sturdy form, gasping for breath.

She feels his arms press her tighter against his leanly muscled form, and feels him shakes his head. "Stubborn, stubborn Thalia."

She almost mistakes his patronizing tone for affection, but reprimands herself.

Blackness crawls into her vision.

(The dark comes back. Had it ever truly left?)

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"She's been missing for over two weeks!"

Annabeth is a wreck. After being torn apart from each other for five years, she had her best friend back for mere months before someone took her away again. Percy has been trying to console her, tell her that nothing has happened to Thalia, that Thalia is strong, that Thalia is resilient. He tells himself the same, whenever his own panic threatens to overwhelm him. Because Thalia's abduction from her cabin has the implication that someone - or something - had been able to cross the barrier, and that they could do so even once leads to concern that there could be a repeat performance.

The duo, alongside Grover, have once again burst into Chiron's office and are demanding to be given permission and equipment for a quest to go and find her.

Chiron just sighs. "We have bigger problems—"

It takes both Percy and Grover to stop Annabeth from jumping across the desk and wringing the centaur's neck. Because what could possibly be direr than her missing best friend?

"—Zeus has been captured."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She wakes up encased in someone's arms.

Her clothed back is pressed into a bare chest. It's male and toned, and emits a familiar warmth. She knows who lays pressed behind her. One of his arms casually drapes itself over her hips while the other lays in the gap between her neck and the bed before wrapping across her chest and gripping the arm that is pressed into the sheets.

She is trapped.

But she is also a fighter, and has been spending the past few minutes of consciousness gauging the room for potential weapons and escape options.

The room is sparse and distinctly male. The bed she is on appears to be in the corner. The wall across has a wardrobe, a desk covered in documents organized into distinct piles as well as a small plastic alarm clock, a chair for the desk, and a door with no exterior locks (most likely towards a bathroom). The wall south of her feet has a door with six locks (probably the exit). The wall supporting the head of the bed (or what she can see of it) has a map with multiple X's and O's marked all over it in various colours. There are no windows, not a large vent in sight, and nothing that isn't absolutely necessary.

His hold on her tightens, and his face further digs into her neck. There is some light stubble scratching into her skin with the movement.

She is ignoring the fact that her clothes have somehow been changed. She isn't going to think about who changed them. Nope. Not going to give the idea a spare thought.

She is gauging the potential of using the pen on the desk as a lockpick (or even a blade), when she feels him begin to stir.

"There are no weapons. There is no escape route. You're here until I let you leave."

Luke's voice is still hoarse from sleep, but his message is clear. His foreboding words resonate.

His hold on her tightens further, physically conveying that she isn't going anywhere. It seems like he is going to return to sleep until a loud beeping and buzzing dispels the silence.

He groans and buries his face further into the crevice of her neck, and for a second, Thalia thinks that he is going to ignore the buzzing. If old Luke wanted to sleep, nothing less than a monster was able to wake him up.

Instead, he grumpily casts aside the blanket, gets off of the bed, and makes his way to the desk. He turns a cellphone that had been lying on it, then frowns at the ID showing on the screen before answering. "What is it?"

She ignores the assault of cold on her body and focuses all her energy on eavesdropping.

"I'm on my way."

His voice is still thick and scratchy with sleep in his response. He hangs up harshly, obviously upset about the fact that he has to get out of bed. He walks to his drawer and pulls on a shirt. Then he walks back over to her, sits on the bed, and stares at her. Their eyes meet, and for a moment she thinks he will explain everything to her. Instead, he just raises his hands to fix the blanket. The thick quilt is covering everything below her chin now. She briefly wonders if he'll be merciful and just strangle her with it.

The comforter is saturated by his smell. That wasn't the first night he'd slept there…

So many questions range through her head: what, who, when, where, why?

"What did you do to me?" she finally croaks out.

He gives her a patronizing, indulgent smile in response, which is followed by a slow, lingering kiss on her cheek.

"I'll be back soon."

He turns to leave the room, but speaks once more before he crosses the threshold revealed by the open door.

"And you can stop squirming about what you're wearing. I asked one of the girls on board to help you into something more appropriate for sleeping in." She can hear the smirk, "Wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable. And really, the bunnies and buttons are just too adorable."

She spends the next hour imagining very carmine-colored ways to kill him.

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"I'm hungry. "

"No, you're not."

Luke had just returned from wherever he went. He was currently sitting beside her laying form, once more swirling her black locks between his dexterous fingers. She absently notes that her hair is longer now, brushing below her shoulders, as she hadn't bothered to cut the locks after waking from her five-year nap.

Luke had turned her body onto the other side in order to face him, but she clutched the blanket to her body as if it were a shield. Which is completely ridiculous, of course, because she is not stupid enough to think anything will ever be able to keep him away from her.

She tries again. "I need to go to the bathroom."

He chuckles, "No, you don't."

It was clear that whatever Luke had used to weaken her had somehow turned off any bodily function in her that would give her an excuse to leave the bed. He had put her body in some sort of stasis, and she ignores the fear that creeps up her spine as she realizes that he has gained enough power to do so.

They stay staring at each other in silence. While Luke continues to nonchalantly fiddle with her hair, Thalia's mind continues to race.

He gets called away again. Before he gets himself off of the bed, he turns her onto her back. Then he gives her another kiss on the cheek but, this time, it hovers dangerously close to her lips. When he opens the door to leave, she tries to see what is behind it. To her disappointment, all she sees is a wooden wall on the other side of a hallway. Which means that she still has no clue where he has taken her.

'Another wooden prison.' the voice sing-songs with a maniacal glee.

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When Luke enters the room one more, his eyes are glued on his cellphone and she can tell that he is both exhausted and frustrated.

Before he looks her way, she shuts her eyes, steadies her breathing, and prays that it is enough to convince him that she is asleep.

Instead of coming onto the side of the bed, he crawls on top of her, with less than an inch between their bodies. It takes everything she has not to open her eyes in shock. His forearms fall against her pillow, sandwiching her head, while his legs drag themselves so that they straddle her hips.

He stays there, unmoving. Thalia knows that it is a trick. She won't allow herself to fall for it.

"Nice try, Thalia."

When she feels his tongue slide along on her throat, she bites back a gasp of shock. Actually she doesn't, if the wicked grin on his face is anything to go by. And shit her eyes are open.

Luke stays where he is, holding himself above her with his face too close to hers.

"Remember that boy in Wickerton?" he asks.

She responds to him with a confused look.

He seems glad — relieved — that she does not remember, and elaborates. "We were at some sort of carnival or fair. The three of us had just stumbled across it. There wasn't an admission fee so Anna begged us to go in. She had never been to a fair before, and the lights and music were practically created to lure happy little girls like her. At one of the stalls we walked by, she saw a stuffed rainbow bear, one that she wanted so badly."

His gentle voice is so familiar and it pries open her heart a little to him. The kind tone sounds so much like the Luke she remembered. The one who she remembers joking and sparring and surviving alongside.

"And you were convinced you could win it for her. Probably didn't help that a brat beside you made some comment about girls not being able to keep up with him."

Thalia smiled at the memory of her younger self, though she couldn't quite recall it. "I won right?"

Luke laughs softly and presses his forehead softly onto hers. "No, you didn't. He did." A different type of look, one she can't recognize, replaces amusement as he continues. "The brat had heard our conversation though. He knew that Anna really wanted the stupid bear, and that you just wanted to make her happy. So he gave you a deal: if you wanted the bear, you had to kiss him for it. Before I had a chance to talk you out of it and punch his stupidly eager face, you'd already gone through with it and given Anna the bear. I had never been so furious with you. I was jealous, angry, and I wanted to kill that kid. I wanted nothing more in the whole world in that moment than to beat him until he stopped breathing. You had given your first kiss to him; when it should have been mine."

She'd forgotten about that.

Luke continues, looking deep into her eyes, "He may have gotten your first, but every other one is mine… right up to your last. "

It is a promise and a challenge; they both always were competitive to a fault.

She ignores the memory of the night before they met Grover, of an innocent kiss she had always considered her first, freely given to a boy with adoring green eyes and a heart that beat in sync with hers.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her time is spent either with Luke in the room, or by herself in the room.

To her increasing ire, her movement is still limited, her limbs nothing more than passive extensions. She is stuck in the bed. Bedridden like some hapless invalid.

Time passes. She begins to hate her time alone in the room. She hates being trapped between wooden walls with nothing more than her thoughts and fragmented memories rearing their sharp edges. And maybe she gets a bit lonely, a bit stir-crazy. And maybe she begins to look forward to the times when he is here with her if only to fill the silence.

But she still doesn't kiss back.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well look at that! Now I know why Luke is always so eager to go back to his room. Aren't you a pretty sight."

The boy who has entered the room seems of age with (or maybe a little older than) Luke. He has shaggy brown hair, a nose that a little bit too long for his face, and a look in his eyes that makes Thalia want to retch.

The boy wastes no time in climbing above her. He starts grasping at her roughly, and it takes everything she has not to cry because this can't be happening.

He forces his mouth onto hers and she is panicking. She tastes iron in her mouth and feels the burn of bile rising in her throat. Someone help! Luke! Luke, please come back! Luke, please! Please help me!

Her mind is screaming. Not this. She doesn't want this. Not with this stranger. And her face is wet because no one is coming and Luke, please help me!

Her eyes are closed, in some attempt to recede to a place where she isn't here, so she doesn't see the boy's eyes glow.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the weight of the boy is ripped off of her, and Luke is bloodying his face, Thalia wants to sob in relief.

In that moment, old Luke returns. The boy who protected her, who laughed with her, who took care of her and who she took care of in return. Here is the boy she trusted with her life, the boy she died for, and the boy she would do anything for.

Luke is still livid, viciously hitting the stranger and hissing something in furious tones.

Thalia vindictively thinks that she wants Luke to kill the boy. 'If he loves you he'll kill him.' the voice coos.

Then she registers her thoughts and she feels instantly nauseous. Her stomach revolts. She is utterly repulsed and wholly disbelieving that she is capable of wishing murder on someone. That she is encouraging Luke to take on the role of murderer. The words leave her lips easily, if only half-heartedly, "Luke, don't kill him. Please."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I dumped him in the cellar. If he survives 'till tomorrow, then I'll maybe consider possibly getting him some medical."

Luke has just returned after dragging the boy's unconscious form out of the room. His is still tense with rage and for a moment she fears he will accuse her of welcoming the boy's attentions. She does not even want to consider what Luke would do to her then.

Instead his eyes are concerned; his iris a warm green. The expression is familiar, she used to see it in old Luke. His hand comes up to her face and despite herself she flinches. His warm eyes are hurt and she feels guilty. 'He saved you. You owe him.' the voice advises.

Luke's words are quiet when he asks, "Did he—"

"No, you stopped him."

His body relaxes in relief. "I'll get one of the other girls to help you shower."

She meets Mitera. Mitera with an odd name who doesn't talk much and doesn't answer any of the questions Thalia manages to throw at her. Mitera who is strangely unsettling, despite easily being the most beautiful girl Thalia has ever met (perhaps even more than even Beryl was).

Mitera who Luke says will stand outside to guard the room whenever he isn't here, though she suspects Luke will make sure to be here even more now.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'He saved you. You owe him. He saved you. You owe him. He saved you. You owe him.' the voice chants.

That is the first night she kisses him back. She even wraps her arms around his neck (not realizing the significance of the fact that she is suddenly able to move the wayward limbs so easily). She is dizzied by his ministrations and does nothing when his hands wander more than they probably should.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her breathing slows to a sleeping tune, and her eyes are closed.

She is entirely unaware of the vile smirk of triumph that slithers onto Luke's face.

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The so-called almighty god is trapped in his human form, restrained by numerous silver chains glowing with the red coils of a powerful curse. The magicked metal is digging into his limbs. It slices into his skin if he moves too abruptly, but he hasn't been capable of doing so for a while in his increasingly weakened state. He is too exhausted to do little more than lift his gaze when his captor enters the prison.

Luke Castellan strides towards the fallen god with sadistic glee radiating off of him. He kneels and makes sure he is face to face with the Olympian. He eagerly anticipates the god's reaction to his words.

"She's gorgeous when she screams." Luke mocks. The blonde makes sure to lick his lips lasciviously for added effect. "Every time I take her she begs for someone to help her. Every time I force her, she sobs. Every time she's underneath me, she pleads for her father to save her. But he never comes." He smirks then taunts further, "I do though, many times."

The god rages against his chains, despite his debilitated state, and his eyes are murderous when they glare at his captor. Luke just smirks, loving the torture the god is suffering. This god who cursed Thalia's existence. The god who stole her from him for five years. This god whose libido and indiscretions have birthed eons of bastards, doomed to die for the sole reason of being sired by a father lacking the desire to protect them.

Luke turns his back to the incapacitated 'king of gods', and leaves the prison. He doesn't bother to spare a glance at the two others chained against the wall.

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Poseidon delivers the news stoically, with Athena standing firmly at his side.

"Apollo and Hermes were sent to retrieve Zeus."

Dionysus snorts. "Thanks for the update uncle. Problem solved, then? I have more pressing things to be concerning myself with than the details of Daddy dearest's most recent escapade. Honestly, man's probably just cozying up to some nymph or witch or something. He will return with a bright post-coital glow and with another bastard or two to his name, laughing at your concern."

Poseidon scowls at the infamous drunkard's disrespect, but keeps his tone level and his heavy gaze on Chiron when he responds. "It has been almost three weeks since their departure. Neither have returned."

Chiron sighs in disbelief and a bit of trepidation. He foresees dark times ahead. "Thank you for taking the time to inform us. Not to overstep, but if you already sent in a rescue team, then am I to assume that you know where Zeus is being kept?"

Athena and Poseidon share a meaningful glance before Poseidon nods. Athena explains what they have discovered. She tells them about a prophecy no one outside of a select few Olympians and a dead prophet were ever supposed to know.

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Dionysus really wishes Zeus had not deprived him of the transient memory losses and stress relief accompanied by the imbuement with a couple good litres of wine.

How in Hades was Luke able to dispose of three gods?

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End of Chapter 3

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How do you all suspect Luke received his little power up? How do you think he's able to keep Thalia locked up, and how do you think he was able to steal her away from camp? Share your thoughts in a review :D

Preview for Chapter 4: the power pillager

"You're not twelve anymore Thalia. You know what I want… You know it's more than a kiss."

...

the threads carefully reigning Luke's self-control snap.

...

He is going to devour her.

...

Or have you forgotten all the blood we have spilled over the past seven months. Has your desire to see Olympus fall wavered?

...

She is becoming dependent on you, because she has had no one else for months. You should utilize her desperation. She won't ever give you her heart, but you can still take her body.

...

The voice jeers. 'You should have just given him what he wanted.'


	4. the power pillager

Summary: Luke is possessive, obsessive, and powerful. The gods are at his mercy and Olympus is within his grasp. But, he's not done yet. After all, every king needs a queen… and this time, she will never leave his side again. Dark Luke. Thaluke. Thalia and Luke. Some Percabeth and Annabeth+Thalia friendship.

For the purpose of this story: The prophecy mentioned 21, not 16, as the age of the child. Luke is 20 years old and Thalia is chronologically 19 years old. However, Thalia looks like she is 18 years old due to the whole pine tree slowing down, but not stopping, her aging. Percy and Annabeth are 16 years old.

Other timeline notes: Luke met Thalia when he was 10 years old (thus Jason 'died' when Thalia was 9 years old). The duo met Annabeth when Luke was 13 years old. Grover found Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth and led them towards camp half-blood when Luke was 15 years old. Events of the first book happened when Luke was 19 years old and Percy was 15 years old. Thalia was thus a tree for four and a half/five years.

Disclaimer: Anything from the Percy Jackson and the Olympian books belongs to Rick Riordan. Plot twists, new dialogue, and [spoiler alert] new prophecy are mine. If I did own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, well Thaluke would be alive and kicking butt ;)

On with the fourth chapter!

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Chapter 4: the power pillager

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Time passes.

Thalia can walk now.

Well, at least, she can walk a few paces before collapsing. She can sit up by herself too. Right now, she is sitting on the bed with her back against the headboard and her legs sprawled on the bed. Luke mirrors her position next to her.

They only just finish talking about that time they taught Anna how to climb a tree, laughing over how Anna ended up better at it than the both of them, when Thalia decides she wants a shower. She tells Luke as much. Tells him to hurry up and get out and bring Mitera in. His smile gives way to a mischievous smirk before responding. "Sure you don't want my assistance instead?"

Despite the fact that he is covering his intentions with a joking tone, she is not ignorant of the way his gaze drifts along her curves.

She isn't entirely sure if she minds, which is terrifying.

She can't bring herself to respond.

Luke leaves the room and is replaced by a solemn-looking Mitera who helps her walk to the bathroom. Thalia can stand on her own now, and shower too, but she can't walk more than a few paces.

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Thalia turns off the tap, then turns towards the towel Mitera offers her. Thalia dries herself off, and stretches out her hand expecting to be handed the a cleaned version of her cotton t-shirt and pajama pant set (annoyingly stamped with various fury woodland creatures).

The silk placed into her hand is not the familiar button-up cotton t-shirt and pajama pant set.

Thalia just stares at the thing in her hand, dumbfounded.

She looks for the t-shirt and pajama pants she was wearing before her shower, and does not find them. Her gaze falls back to the article of clothing(?) still in her outstretched hand. It is too thin, too short, and she refuses to wear it.

"I don't do lace." She manages to squeak out, before finding her voice again and being more vocal with her protests.

The ever-unruffled Mitera ignores her and raises a brow starchily. "The only alternative is the soaking wet towel that you are currently struggling to keep up."

Thalia glares at the wet towel that barely covers more than the dark blue shiny thing that is still in her hand will. Thalia puts the offending night dress on angrily, snidely congratulating Mitera on the longest sentence she has heard the red-haired girl string together.

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Luke doesn't let the door shut from Mitera's exit before he enters the room. He freezes when he sees Thalia sitting on his bed. His feet stay planted, but he leers greedily up and down the curves lined in blue, and stares hungrily at the smooth skin dusted with lace. His staring is searing her skin and she feels a burning behind her eyes. Old Luke never looked at her like that. She hates it.

"You're not twelve anymore Thalia. You know what I want… You know it's more than a kiss."

His voice is too close, too hoarse, and deeper than she has ever heard it. His eyes finally meets her own and she is startled by the intensity of his gaze.

His pupils have exploded. His green eyes are almost black from lust and desire.

The hunt will never take her after this, if she lets him have her. She should be passionately refusing. She should be screaming at him. She should be threatening him with death should he dare come near her with such desperate lust-blown eyes. Instead, what she hears leave her mouth is a quiet plea for more time. "I'm not ready yet. Luke, please."

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...Luke, please."

Her last two words comes out breathily, and his name on her lips in such a tone is all it takes. The threads carefully reigning Luke's self-control snap.

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She is pinned between him and the mattress.

Luke's hands are warmer than ever as they find her waist and haul her against him. The smooth material of the night dress moves languidly across her skin when his hands start rubbing in circles over it. The lace trimming of the hemline rises dangerously higher on her thigh with each rotation.

"I'll take care of you, don't worry. I'l always take care of you."

His words come out as a low growl. He swallows her objections with a kiss that is deeper than it has ever been. One of his hands stops its roaming of her hips to grip her jaw and force her face closer to his. There is a stronger intent behind this kiss. It is bruising in its intensity. There is no more hesitation from him, no careful consideration of the girl he wants.

He is going to devour her.

His hands wander up then down, taking the barely there straps of the dress down with them. His hands begin savagely feasting on her bare curves.

"Luke, please stop," She forces her pride to ignore the begging in her tone. She also forces herself to ignore the hardening mass she feels against her thigh "Please, don't." Her body turns weak and rigid again, unable to move and unable to protest his pawing.

He's going to force me.

Tears stream down her face uncontrollably.

"If you ever truly cared for me, stop Luke!"

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Some part of Luke registers her panic, the palpable horror exuding off of her in thick waves.

He brutally yanks himself onto his back next to her. In the process of doing so, he tears his hands and eyes away from her body. His breathing is hard and he can feel himself shaking from the self-restraint. He continues to face the ceiling, with one hand over his eyes. With every deep breath he forces himself to remember that he loves her, and that you don't force people you love. He tells himself that he can wait, that he will wait, because hadn't he already waited five years? He can force himself to wait just a little bit longer.

He hears her sniffle, and the guilt rips his heart in half.

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He gets up, roughly pulls open a drawer to grab a towel and clothes, then stalks over towards the bathroom and slams the door to it without saying a word. Thalia hears the shower turn on, but she is still frozen, afraid of what he will do when he returns.

When he comes back with tissues, she still hasn't regained movement of her body, and she is well aware of just how much of her torso is still bare to him. He removes the shirt he only just put on, and Thalia's heartbeat thuds to a stop, fearful that he will continue where he left off.

Instead, the shirt stays in his hand, and he steps towards her only to help her into it. He uses the tissues crinkled in his hand to wipe her face, before throwing them into the small plastic waste pin below the desk.

Then Luke slowly pulls her into his arms. He holds her against his cold skin tightly, but loosely enough that she is not entirely uncomfortable. His buries his face into her neck, and her face ends up buried into his neck. He uses his hands to guide her own so that they end up splayed over his chest, and his heart beat steadily thumps beneath her fingers.

"Go to sleep, Thalia." He whispers.

She is ready to sob in relief.

"Thank you." She whispers into his skin. Don't you dare thank him! He is a monster! He was going to force you!

He responds only by holding her tighter.

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Luke leaves the sleeping girl in his room the moment her breathing evens out. He quietly retrieves another shirt from his drawer, and slips it on before leaving the bedroom. As he shuts the door, he leans his back against it, trying to take deep breaths. He is glad there are no other rooms in this hallway, he doesn't need anyone witnessing his feeble attempts to bring his raging hormones back under control.

He doesn't trust himself near Thalia at the moment. He is just about to make his way to the training rooms to let off some steam when he hears someone approaching. He doesn't need to turn to identify the owner of the quiet steps.

He hears a sigh of annoyance before her reprimanding begins. "You did not do it." Mitera accuses.

Luke glares at Mitera. "I didn't want to force her. I won't force her."

Mitera sneers. "You have done much worse than forcing an unwilling girl to reach our goal. Or have you forgotten all the blood we have spilled over the past seven months. Has your desire to see Olympus fall wavered?

Luke's glare intensifies. "No. If anything, it has exponentially increased." Luke's fists tighten at his sides. "They are the reason she won't be with me."

Mitera rolls her eyes. "Luke, I will not expect you to force her, but in turn... you cannot expect her to love you."

Luke expression looks as if she has slapped him. He reigns in his growing ire, before stating emphatically, "She does love me." At Mitera's pitying look, Luke continues. "She does. She just doesn't remember. She's just a little confused right now…"

Mitera cuts him off. "The girl spent five years trapped, and you have her trapped again. She is becoming dependent on you, because she has had no one else for months. You should utilize her desperation. She won't ever give you her heart, but you can still take her body—"

"And be like every Olympian who raped their way through cities?" Luke sneers. "No way in hell. You of all people, I would think, would understand why I will not force her." His anger begins to seep into his tone. "And I would appreciate it if you left your little tricks out of my relationship with Thalia. If I hadn't recognized that Chris was spelled by you, I would have killed him. Still considering it, actually."

"I thought she would be more inclined to bed her hero. Most girls her age would." Mitera says it clinically, no inflection hinting at guilt of any sort.

"And the little dress-up act you just pulled?" Luke is just barely able to keep himself from yelling. The last thing he needs is to waken Thalia and have her eavesdropping.

"Consider the picture and feel of her in that pretty piece of fabric my apology to you for me taking so long to locate the last relic. I found it. In fact, we should leave for it now."

Luke's anger is quickly replaced quickly by the thrill of the upcoming quest. Excitement begins to pump through Luke's veins. He feels the lure of more power, of finding the last piece of the puzzle. "Well," Luke smirks, "what are we still doing here then?"

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Luke never questions the integrity of Mitera's desire to see the gods fall. He knows her story (or at least what she is willing to tell him of it), and understands that she may be the only person on Earth who hates Olympus as much as he does.

He also understands why she plays the part of a callous bitch. If anyone deserves to lash out at the world around them, he supposes she does.

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The next morning Thalia wakes up and he isn't there.

Hours pass. The day does too.

She stares at the clock, watches the numbers change, and tries to stay up as long as she can. Eventually she falls asleep, and wakes again. He still hasn't come back.

Another day passes.

She ignores the pangs of loneliness. She should be elated, not disappointed.

'You're being left alone as punishment for not giving him what he wanted.' The voice jeers. 'You should have just given him what he wanted.'

She curls into herself, able to move a bit again.

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Luke walks up to his bedroom door, with an emotion just shy of elation vibrating through his every movement. The final relic is secured. Tomorrow he'll be able to siphon its power too.

He is surprised to see Mitera waiting in the hallway leading to his bedroom door. He would have thought that she would be working on healing some of the others who had returned with them from mission for the relic.

He is even more surprised to see a first aid kit hanging from her hand, since she didn't need it to heal.

She answers the first question in his eyes. "I healed them all, no major injuries. I noticed you had a scrape through." She points to his ribs.

Luke looks down, lifts his shirt a bit, and sees the small cut. It's barely there, already congealed. Or at least it was, until it suddenly grows deeper and longer. He hisses in pain, and glares at Mitera's glowing eyes. "What the fu—"

She smiles. "I have an idea."

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End of Chapter 4

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Hmm... I wonder what's up with Mitera? Would be interesting to hear your theories on her backstory ;) There have been some very, very subtle hints thrown here and there. Hint: google her name hehe

So maybe Luke isn't entirely evil quite yet, but he's definitely on his way there. What do you guys think he's gathering the power for?

Poor Thalia, I think I loved her because she was so independent and sassy, so I'm kind of annoyed at myself for making her so weak in this fic (granted, that may only be for a few more chapters)

One more chapter to go before my little New Years blitz ends. Want more? Please review! I love getting constructive criticism. Is there a passage that is beyond confusing? A grammar/spelling mistake (or multiple)? A piece of the story that just doesn't make sense? P.S. What are your thoughts on the previews, yay or nay?

Preview for Chapter 5: knows

"You really are pretty," she hiccups, "I'm sorry for it. Men use pretty things

...

Thalia flinches, then she turns, intending to leave before the inebriated woman puts her words to practice and sells her daughter to the next big wig casting director. Thalia doesn't entirely trust that Beryl won't.

...

Luke's stare hardens at her words. "That's not fair… you can't say things like that, and then flinch when I touch you.

...

Without him she's lonely and desperate for his presence. She doesn't know who to blame for her growing dependence on him.

...

Chiron has all but begged Poseidon to let the young trio be informed of the prophecy, if only to save them from killing themselves on another misguided (if well-intentioned) rescue mission.

...

Annabeth looks at them all with hard eyes. "She is the best of us. She gave up her life to save me. To save you" Her glare focuses on Grover briefly before she continues "…To save this entire camp. She is more brave and more loyal than anyone I have ever met. Thalia would never betray us."

Athena sighs at her daughter. "I understand your affection for her, Annabeth. But you have to remember… she was his before she was yours."

...

She remembers Thalia's hollow eyes and empty smiles and for the first time doubt nags at her heart. She wonders if perhaps Thalia doesn't want them to find her.

...

"… sky in silver … gilded girl … gods be gone … Olympus will fall …"

...

That night, she hears Percy again. "Don't trust him, Thalia."

...

"Do you truly think she'll ever forgive you, Luke? Maybe there is a part of her that cares for you, but she will leave you as soon as she learns how you're using her to—"

Luke's glare silences his so-called father and all but hisses, "She'll always love me. I'll never let her leave me. She is mine."


	5. knows

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Summary: Luke is possessive, obsessive, and powerful. The gods are at his mercy and Olympus is within his grasp. But, he's not done yet. After all, every king needs a queen… and this time, she will never leave his side again. Dark Luke. Thaluke. Thalia and Luke. Some Percabeth and Annabeth+Thalia friendship.

For the purpose of this story: The prophecy mentioned 21, not 16, as the age of the child. Luke is 20 years old and Thalia is chronologically 19 years old. However, Thalia looks like she is 18 years old due to the whole pine tree slowing down, but not stopping, her aging. Percy and Annabeth are 16 years old.

Other timeline notes: Luke met Thalia when he was 10 years old (thus Jason 'died' when Thalia was 9 years old). The duo met Annabeth when Luke was 13 years old. Grover found Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth and led them towards camp half-blood when Luke was 15 years old. Events of the first book happened when Luke was 19 years old and Percy was 15 years old. Thalia was thus a tree for four and a half/five years.

Disclaimer: Anything from the Percy Jackson and the Olympian books belongs to Rick Riordan. Plot twists, new dialogue, and [spoiler alert] new prophecy are mine. If I did own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, well Thaluke would be alive and kicking butt ;)

This chapter is rated MA. It's dark and twisted and I'm actually kind of shocked that I was capable of writing it. Then again, if you've read my other fics, you've probably come to expect these sorts of fics. I promise I'm a happy, pleasant, none-psychotic person in real life ;)

On with Chapter 5!

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Chapter 5: knows

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When she hears the door to the room ricochet off the wall, Thalia turns right away, eager to see Luke (eager to see another human). He stands at the threshold for a moment, hand across is side and pressing into his torso before limping to chair with the assistance of Mitera.

She sits up on the bed immediately. "What happened?"

The chair he sits on is facing slightly away from her, so Luke has to angle his head back to meet her concerned eyes. He gives her a weak smile. "It's okay Thals."

Mitera gets on her knees before Luke, and starts slowly stripping away his jacket and shirt, carefully trying to avoid the gushing cut by his ribs. His shirt is drenched, and sticks to the wound. The pit in Thalia's stomach (the one being fed by the loneliness of the past few days, of the past months of being in this cage) grows as she sees Mitera lean in closer to Luke to clean his wound and stitch it up. Then the usually overly-efficient red-head takes her time to wrap gauze around the admittedly kind of shotty stitching job.

Thalia wonders if Luke notices the way that Mitera looks at him, with half-lidded golden brown eyes and barely concealed desire.

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Luke's face is turned back towards his side, pressing down on it whenever Mitera instructs him to. He doesn't see the point of this little charade, but let's Mitera do as she pleases. He still doesn't expect the kiss to his side, and is more than a little uncomfortable with it. But it heals up the gash, so whatever, he supposes.

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Thalia doesn't notice Luke tense when Mitera kisses (the girl actually kisses) the wound over the gauze, and a traitorous thought comes from the pit. As usual, it is masked in Beryl's voice. 'He probably spent the past few days with her, kissing her while she happily gave him what you wouldn't.'

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Thalia's relationship with the woman who bore her was completely dysfunction and toxic at the best of times. Beryl Grace wasn't fit to be a mother, even if you disregarded the fact that the alcoholic had killed Thalia's younger brother.

Occasionally though, between the woman's bouts of wasted unconsciousness and nights spent stumbling into their mansion smelling of various different males, the elder Grace decided to impart some 'valuable' life advice to her only daughter.

A specific episode slips from the door it is supposed to be trapped behind, and comes to the forefront of Thalia's mind. It is from when her mother had just come back from a weekend away with some producer or another. Thalia is helping the drunken waste of space (who reeks of alcohol, cigarettes, weed, and sex) sit onto her bed when the woman tugs at her hair and starts spewing her latest lesson.

"You really are pretty," she hiccups, "I'm sorry for it. Men use pretty things. Men enjoy getting to have pretty girls like you, but are quick throw them away for prettier ones."

"Yes Beryl." Thalia placates as she attempts to push the woman's legs onto the bed as well.

"I mean it. You will be so, so beautiful. You'll have your father's icy blue eyes and long black locks. You'll have my perfect skin, my full lips, my breasts, and my hips. Every man in the country will line up salivating for the chance to fuck you. They'd probably do you now if I let him, and promised to keep it a secret."

Thalia flinches, rips Beryl's grip from her hair. Then she turns, intending to leave before the inebriated woman puts her words to practice and sells her daughter to the next big wig casting director. Thalia doesn't entirely trust that Beryl won't.

Beryl grips her arm though, before Thalia can escape. She laughs loudly then, as if her words hadn't terrified eight-year old Thalia. "Don't be such a little prude. Sex is the key to getting what you want. Especially for pretty little girls you. Best to learn that now. Men will want you, but they won't ever wait for you. Remember to give a man what he wants, or he'll find someone else who will."

When she runs away the next year, after Beryl gets Jason killed, the first thing Thalia does is roughly cut her locks and hide herself behind baggy leather jackets and snarky jibes.

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'Remember to give a man what he wants, or he'll find someone else who will.'

The voice (which Thalia recognizes has been Beryl's all along) lets the words ring in Thalia's head as Mitera leaves. They keep ringing even as Luke makes his way to her. All Thalia can think about is the words and how quiet it was when no one was there. How empty it was…

Luke's hand on her cheek is unexpected, and startles her from her thoughts. Her face moves backwards a bit, leaving Luke's hand hovering between them.

"What happened?" she repeats.

Luke sighs and brings his hand back down to his side. "You don't need to worry about me."

Thalia lets out a disbelieving snort. "Someone has to." Someone who isn't Mitera.

Luke's stare hardens at her words. "That's not fair… you can't say things like that, and then flinch when I touch you.

She responds before she realizes what she's saying. "I don't flinch."

She has just issued a challenge, and she is not naïve enough to think that Luke won't act on it. She doesn't flinch when his hand comes back up to her cheek, stroking it lightly, before tracing its way down. She is surprised when his hand doesn't go down to her chest, but instead goes down her arm. Hand reaching hand, he interlocks his fingers with hers.

"I've loved you for years. When you died, it tore me apart. I mourned you every minute, I never forgot, and every day I missed you more. Now that you're back here, with me I… after so long… I am trying not to force you, Thalia. So hard. But you need to meet me half way."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Remember to give a man what he wants, or he'll find someone else who will.'

Thalia still doesn't want to give herself to him. She knows that doing so will make it so that the hunt won't ever accept her. And if she doesn't join the hunt then the prophecy will fall to her. She doesn't want that at all. But she isn't naïve, she knows another way to give Luke what he wants without completely giving herself to him.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With Thalia straddling him to his bed, her warm mouth working its way down his chest, and her fluid hands working towards loosening the buckle of his belt, the last coherent thought Luke has is that he should have tried Mitera's nefarious little jealously scheme a long, long time ago.

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He sees stars and his hands find themselves gripping the sheets.

When he finally comes crashing back down from his high, his throat raw after roaring out her name, he looks down to see her wide blue eyes starting right back up at him. Thalia's glossy lips pop as they leave him, and his eyes zero in on the bit of sticky milky liquid that escaped her mouth as it trickles from the left edge of her lips.

The air between them crackles, and he wastes no time in hauling her against him. He tastes himself on her lips when he claims them in a raw, toe-curling, earth-shattering kiss.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thalia is unsurprised (and maybe a little excited) when she feels Luke switch their orientation and drag her between him and the bed. He keeps his lips on her the entire time, in a kiss that is positively raw and smoldering.

His words are a low growl between ragged breathes when they brush against the shell of her ear. "Allow me to return the favor."

The next thing she knows, her shirt is being ripped off of her, buttons scattering along the floor. His lips and hands attack every part of her bare to him. She feels no fear, only anticipation, and perhaps more than a little bit of victory. Luke won't leave her here alone ever again.

His teeth nibble on a particularly sensitive spot, and it has her reeling with her nails digging into his back for purchase. The wanton sound that leaves her mouth only serves to increase his ministrations and she keens with pleasure, plastering herself against him.

In his eagerness, his rough pull tears the fabric of her pants too. She supposes she should be annoyed at his lack of care for her attire, but she can't quite think anymore because his finger is impaling her.

He adds another, and she turns to a moaning mess, begging him for more.

His teeth sink into her neck as his fingers hit a place she didn't realize she needed him, and all she sees is white lights.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He makes sure to watch her as she comes apart, committing to memory the way she screams his name in ecstasy and the little mewling sounds of pleasure that follow as he helps her ride out her first organism. He eyes make note of the violent red mark on her neck where he branded her and he knows that he wants more. That he'll always want more of her.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She collapses into his chest. She feels light and sated and dizzy and good and happy and not hollow, not anymore. He continues to whisper sweet nothings into her ears, along with promises of love and devotion. So entranced by his words and his touches, she doesn't even realize when he takes her completely.

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The first time he takes her, he is gentle and soft. She has never in her life felt more loved and more full and more complete.

He's my other half.

Without him she's lonely and desperate for his presence. She doesn't know who to blame for her growing dependence on him.

She lets him take her again and again. The entire night is filled with deep kisses, heart-clenching gazes, longing-filled voices, and drugging touches.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The morning after, she wakes up to his warm eyes looking at her as if she hangs the world.

He smiles, and it is so kind and so genuine, it is as if it's just them against the world again.

For that smile, she lets him take her again and again and again.

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Chiron sighs at Dionysus's harsh manner. The god is clearly not happy to have Athena, Chiron, and three campers crowding his office.

Annabeth, Percy, and Grover have just returned from their latest failed attempt to find Thalia. Chiron has all but begged Poseidon to let the young trio be informed of the prophecy, if only to save them from killing themselves (and others) on another misguided (if well-intentioned) rescue mission for Thalia. He suspects the only reason his request was sanctioned is that perhaps Poseidon is running out of options too.

Athena has just finished explaining the latest prophecy to three campers, and the three older beings in the room are awaiting their response.

Grover is the first to speak. "So… I'm taking it the "know" in the prophecy is in the biblical sense?"

Dionysus snorts at the satyr's awkward attempt to break the silence, and his ability to point out perhaps the most disturbing points of this newest prophecy.

Percy glares at Grover in reprimand for the comment, before lamenting, "so you think it was Luke that kidnapped her." His voice is tinged with more than a little worry. Both he and Grover look over to Annabeth in concern, anxious as to what her response will be to the prophecy as well as Thalia and Luke's supposed role in it.

Annabeth looks at them all with hard eyes. "She is the best of us. She gave up her life to save me. To save you." Her glare focuses on Grover briefly before she continues "To save this entire camp. She is more brave and more loyal than anyone I have ever met. Thalia would never betray us."

Athena sighs at her daughter. "I understand your affection for her, Annabeth. But you have to remember… she was his before she was yours."

"She wouldn't let him!" Annabeth screams at her mother, uncaring of her audience while defending her best friend. "And no matter what you all think of him he would never force her. He… Luke wouldn't. He wouldn't. No matter how he's changed, he wouldn't hurt her. Luke would die before hurting Thalia."

At their pitying looks the distressed Annabeth bolts out of the room. They don't have to bring up the poison, she remembers it well enough. Memories blare in her mind as she runs. One after another, a reel of times long ago. She recalls her first true family, before it broke beyond repair. She remembers their shared laughs, Thalia trying to teach her how to wield a weapon, Luke trying to teach her sleight of hand, both of them smiling at her bouts of intelligence and …

And then she remembers the way they used to look at each other, and the emptiness she saw in Luke's eyes when he thought she wasn't looking during the first few months at camp (before he perfected his mask). She sifts through her mind, remembering the moments she shared with her best friend during the few months she had her. She remembers Thalia's hollow eyes and blank smiles and for the first time doubt nags at her heart. She wonders if perhaps Thalia doesn't want them to find her.

Perhaps Thalia would rather be with him.

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Thalia finds herself back in her camp-half blood cabin and panics. Why is she back here? Where is Luke? Had he grown tired of her? Had he sent her back?

She makes to open the door, and when she does, she nearly sobs in relief. Outside the door is a white space, and she knows she is dreaming. She retreats back to her bed. She sits down on it, waiting to wake up, when she hears something. It takes her a moment to recognize it as Percy's voice, and it takes her a few minutes more before she is able to make out a few of his words. "… sky in silver … gilded girl … gods be gone … Olympus will fall …"

Thalia wakes up to Luke's hand riding the curve of her spine, as his other arm holds her bare chest against his own. She wants to savour the stillness of the moment, but Percy's words linger.

Luke senses her confusion and gently nudges her. "What's wrong?"

Thalia almost tells him it's nothing, but instead hears herself telling him that she heard Percy's voice in her dream. The moment she says it, she regrets it. Luke tenses immediately, his hand stops its exploration of her back, and she feels herself being clutched to him even tighter with an especially sharp tug.

"Ignore them Thalia." He snarls, before registering the shock in her features and taking a slow breath to calm his anger. His voice softens. "They don't care about you. Not like I do."

She ignores the fact that they haven't really been in her mind since she found herself in the room. It doesn't strike her as important that it is so unlike her to forget about her friends.

Traitor. Traitor. Traitor. Her subconscious accuses. She's not sure if the it is accusing Luke or herself, but she finds she doesn't care… which is maybe a bit strange, because shouldn't she care?

Time passes, and she doesn't hear that pesky subconscious again. She's pretty sure Luke drowned it.

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Time passes.

Thalia can walk freely now.

Well, at least, she can walk freely around the room. She still can't leave it. A transparent barrier prevents her from crossing the threshold. She knows because she tried to cross it once. She feels hungry though. She can eat. Her limbs are fully mobile. Her body isn't back to normal strength quite yet, but it's not like she is planning on fighting her way out anytime soon.

She can take showers on her own, which is a freedom she definitely appreciates. She takes one of the clean towel and folded up clothes that Mitera brought into the room for her this morning, and is just about to make her way to the bathroom when the door opens.

Luke enters the room and a quick glance at the towel in her hand is all he needs to ascertain Thalia's objective. He gives her a mischievous smirk before speaking. "Sure you don't want my assistance?"

It is an echo of what he asked once before. He expects flushed cheeks, and then a huffy but resolute "No way in hell" before she slams the bathroom door in his face.

Instead he receives an impish smile and an outstretched hand, beckoning him forwards.

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That night, she hears Percy again. "Don't trust him, Thalia."

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Even though she doesn't hear her subconscious in the day anymore, she still hears Percy's voice at night. She doesn't tell Luke though. Not after how he reacted the first time.

Slowly, Percy's words become clearer and clearer. She is able to string them together. But that still does nothing to ease her confusion regarding the vague warnings mixed within his nonsensical words.

"Don't trust him Thalia… A bronze box sees the sky in silver… a gilded girl… power pillager... bring…dusk and dawn…gods be gone… one babe breathes, Olympus will fall…"

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"…one babe breathes, Olympus will fall…"

The last line, first heard tonight, has Thalia shooting up in bed. Her eyes widen, her mind is wide awake, and she begins hyperventilating.

Babe. Child. Baby. Fuck, they haven't been using… but the… but she… No. There is no way she could be…

She doesn't hear Luke asking her what's wrong, doesn't feel him trying to shake her out of her stupor. In her mind, all she hears is a baby wailing and she panics.

It takes Luke an hour to calm her down enough for her to speak. "What if I'm pregnant?" Thalia finally chokes out, trying to even her breathing. "I-I can't have a child…" She remembers Beryl, and can't help but think that poor parenting is just imbued in her genes. She will ruin it, just like Beryl ruined her. Or maybe she'll just end up killing it, like Beryl killed Jason.

Luke's embrace tightens. "Hey, look at me." When she does, he continues. "Don't worry. Remember, no matter what happens. I'll always take of you. Forever, together."

Hours pass, and she finally falls back asleep in his arms. Lost to her dreams, she is unaware of the way his hand caresses her stomach.

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Luke has always seen Thalia.

Even when she hid her beauty behind roughly chopped hair and dirty cheeks.

Even when she hid her heart behind a rough exterior, mean-spirited quips, and cruel taunts.

Even now, when she hides herself in her mind, her doubts leaving her afraid to trust her heart to him. He doesn't just want her to depend on him because there is no one else. He doesn't want her to just give her body to him as some sort of placation to prevent him from leaving her. He doesn't want Mitera's spells to influence her at all.

He just needs her to love him… to care for him as much as he cares for her. But she is being so stubborn. She won't admit that she wants him back. He stares at her sleeping face with sadness, and a bit of remorse. You'll never see how much I love you, because you don't want to. And maybe... maybe you're a little afraid of what I'll do if you say you don't love me back.

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Annabeth's voice is sharp. "Did you reach her that time?"

Percy sighs in defeat, weary with exhaustion. "I'm trying Anna. But I'm still not sure what parts of my warnings and the prophecy she is actually hearing. Heck, I'm still not sure if I'm even doing it right. My dad's instructions were pretty vague-"

Annabeth cuts him off. "Then I'll go looking for more information. There must be something I missed."

Grover intervenes, and stops Anna from leaving the cabin. His voice is sympathetic, but firm. "Annabeth. You have had barely any sleep in weeks. You've gone through every tome, every paragraph, mentioning demigod dream communication at least three times. We all want Thalia back, but what good will you be in rescuing her if you collapse from exhaustion the moment we step out of camp?"

Annabeth glares, but when Percy's concerned eyes meet her fatigued ones, and his warm hand finds her own, she concedes.

Percy gives her a reassuring smile. "Maybe we should go over what we know. Trying to break down the prophecy again might help us.

Grover rolls his eyes. Percy is the literal definition of whipped. "Since Thalia was revived with the Golden Fleece, she's probably the 'gilded girl' from the prophecy."

Percy adds on, "Athena said powerful magical relics have been disappearing for the past eleven months, only to be found later without their power. She thinks that Luke found a way to steal their magic, and is somehow harnessing it all to take down the gods. So he's the 'power pillager' mentioned in the prophecy.

Annabeth voices the next piece of knowledge. "Zeus is missing. It's likely that the 'sky in silver' is a reference to him in some sort of cage, prison, or even silver chains."

Grover speaks once more. "They all think that the child in the prophecy that makes Olympus fall with a breath is Thalia and Luke's kid, based on the 'a gilded girl knows the power pillager' We still have no idea what the bronze box is though, or what it is supposed to mean."

Percy sighs. "We also don't know who the new ruler is supposed to be. It's probably Luke… I can't see him trusting the reigns to anyone else. Or maybe, it's supposed to be their kid?"

Annabeth is quiet for a moment.

Percy calls her name in concern "Anna?"

Annabeth shakes her head, repeating another passage from the prophecy. "Two bring both dusk and dawn. So with a sun, gods be gone."

Grover groans. "Ya. Not sure what that's supposed to mean either."

Anna shakes her head in confusion. "It doesn't make sense. Two of what?"

Grover groans again and falls back onto his elbows. "It wouldn't be a prophecy if it made sense."

Percy has to hold back a laugh at that, but doesn't bother containing the amused snort when Anna hits Grover over the head in irritation for his unhelpful comment.

Anna frowns. "I'm serious. Just because we can't make sense of it right away doesn't mean we can ignore it. 'So with a sun, gods be gone.' It's confusing. Is it trying to reference dawn or dusk?

Percy's head tilt the side in deliberation, before deciding he has no idea what she means. "What do you mean?"

Annabeth's eyes narrow in concentration. "The line 'so with a sun'. Is the sun referring to an absent sun or a present one? With a sun can be interpreted as either with the sun gone, gods will be gone or with the sun appearing, gods will be gone.

Grover turns his head towards the light seeping into the room from the windows and under the crack of the door."You know" he begins, not holding back an annoyed pout, "looking outside, that sun is currently rising and I have yet to sleep. That's a problem I actually can fix. Time for sleep, for all of us."

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"Remember that discount store, the first Christmas we had with Annabeth?" Luke questions, enjoying the feel of Thalia in his arms as they lay back on the bed.

Thalia laughs loudly into his arm. Luke continues with a smile, "I only asked if you thought Annabeth would like the shirt..."

Thalia takes her face away from his arm to share in the memory. "The cashier was convinced that we were this super young couple, and gave us like 70% off of our entire purchase." She gives him an unimpressed but wholly amused smirk. "To be fair though, you did pick up a toddler's shirt.

Luke shrugs, "Anna was short, and I had no clue about girl's sizing."

Thalia smiles at his poor attempt at a defence. "I also remember the manager coming over and giving you a stern talking to. Telling you that you had to be a proper man and make sure to give your family a true Christmas."

The night continues with more memories and laughs.

Thalia talks freely about their shared memories of Annabeth without feeling an ounce of guilt. She is unable to question why.

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She doesn't know what makes her say it, but one night, when the dark is filled with them trying to catch their breaths, she concedes. She lets him hear the words she knows he is waiting for (words that he has waited over five years for). "I love you too." She ignores the twisting in her gut when she realizes there is a part of her that means it, even if she suspects a larger part doesn't.

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Luke strolls into his prison for the gods whistling, mood happiest it has ever been.

He walks right up to the god of lightening, who is on his knees in the center of the cage, wrapped with glowing silver chains.

"You know" Luke taunts, "I thought it'd be more painful for you if I made you think I was taking her against her will. But you know, I think the truth might actually hurt you more. Then again," Luke's eyes narrow dangerously, "you've never been concerned for her, have you? None of you spar a thought for your bastards. Right now, it's just your pride that's smarting. Knowing that the man who felled you has the girl you sired begging in his bed—"

Another voice, hoarse and weak, interrupts Luke's mini tirade. "Do you truly think she'll ever forgive you, Luke? Maybe there is a part of her that cares for you, if only for the history you have with her, but she will leave you as soon as she learns how you're using her to—"

Luke's glare silences his so-called father and all but hisses, "She will always love me. I'll never let her leave me again. She is mine."

Luke reaches his hands towards the chains, and once his skin meets the metal he feels the power enter his veins. Unfortunately, the magic thrumming in his veins does nothing to drown out the anger at his father's words, so when Luke leaves, he does so with a crazed glaze still burnishing his eyes.

The third god, chained to the wall, sighs wearily. Apollo accuses Zeus and Hermes in sequence. "You caused his obsession with the girl, and you allowed it to fester. Look at the monster you've both bred. No we all will face the brunt of its wrath."

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Her nails dig into his spine as her face presses into his sweaty locks. She moans out his name as his teeth slice the skin above her pulse, one word blaring in his mind.

Mine.

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The prophecy runs through Mitera's mind, as it has every night for the past century.

A bronze box sees the sky in silver

A gilded girl knows the power pillager.

Two bring both dusk and dawn.

So with a sun, gods be gone.

Let one babe breathe, Olympus will fall

And a new ruler will rise above them all.

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End of Chapter 5

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So that was it! Everything completed chapter I have, posted as a hello to 2018 (and an apology for my lack of updating other stories in 2017 X.X_

If you want more chapters, please feed my writer's bug with reviews! It always help to know that someone is actually reading the stuff I post up here ;P

Seriously thought, I'm curious if anyone has figured out Mitera yet. I'm not sure if I was too subtle, not subtle at all, or just completely confusing with her.

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Preview for Chapter 6: sees

Magic that involves another's free will is… difficult. I can't force someone to do something they would never do. But I can amplify doubts, continuously whisper suggestions. I was able to keep her little friends out of her head because a part of her wanted to forget the responsibility that came with knowing them and her fear about her role in the Great Prophecy. I suggested that maybe your prison was better that the prison they kep . I suggested that maybe the others didn't come because they didn't care, and you only kept her because you did. Blood magic is dark, complicated, and to do it involving free will just compounds the complexity.

...

He wants her to think that he needs her to save him. She's always had a saving people complex. Case and point: pine tree.


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